


I Don't Wanna Be Fine

by randomramblesff



Series: You're Gonna Be Fine, You Know? [2]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Episode: s06e13 Emotional Consequences of Broadcast Television, F/M, Missing Scene, finale fic, what happened after the group study room hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 08:51:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8526766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomramblesff/pseuds/randomramblesff
Summary: Set after the study room group hug - Jeff and Annie discuss what's next.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Because some of you wanted a sequel and I kinda' wanted to write one too. This is the end of this lil' mini series, so I hope you enjoy(ed) it!

Jeff’s standing back from the group as they all untangle themselves from the hug, his hands in his back jean pockets as everyone scuffs their feet and decides on where to move next without saying a word. He’s watching Annie of course, mirroring her every movement as she, too, stands on the edge of everyone else.

Britta mumbles something about emotional instability caused by major life changes, somehow missing how he doesn't chime in with a snide remark or challenge in response. Everyone is following her lead out into the parking lot, walking in pairs it seems. Nobody questions how Annie has gone quiet and how easily her step had fallen into place with Jeff’s.

He holds the door open for her seeing as they’re the last ones out, gesturing his keys in the air with a slight motion forward as if to say he’ll catch up. Annie doesn't walk on much further, though, she hangs back a little, smiling and shrugging when Abed turns to look over his shoulder from where he’s walking in between the Dean and Chang.

Jeff pouts a little before he walks down the steps of the library, realising that she’s done more than just hold back; she’s stopped to brush her palms together in some sort of impatient suspense.

“You’re not following the others?” Is all he can think to ask even though he knows the answer will be a simple no or an even simpler shake of the head, which she eventually does.

“I think Abed will do the talking.” Jeff nods, even though he’s not perfectly certain what she means, which seems fitting because not a lot of the past half hour has been making much sense to him.

“So…” He slams his eyes shut when he drags out the word, moving his hands back to his pockets once again before reopening his eyes, unsure of where she’ll be looking or what she’ll be noticing.

“So.”

“You can follow them by the way, if you want, I don't want to hold you back from…” He pauses before finishing the sentence breathily, “…from anything.”

Annie raises her eyebrows but the movement is natural rather than something of a surprise, so he tries not to focus on it.

“It's fine, I just thought… I don’t actually know what I thought, I guess I presumed we should talk, but we don't have to, I mean I'm going away. Only for the summer, but....” She reaches a hand up to brush her hair out of her face where it's tickling her cheek in the breeze, but she ends up pulling more of it forward like she’s trying to hide herself. He has to blink away the thought of tucking it behind her ear, in order to respond somewhat coherently.

“Um, talk.”

She knows ‘talking’ isn't necessarily his strong suit or part of his wheelhouse, and what he’d said in the study room, surprisingly, hadn't taken her aback that much, so she’s not sure if he’d even have much else to talk about, but it seems more proactive than just standing around in the fading warmth outside, the rest of the group now long gone.

“Unless you don’t wa-.”

“No, no, you’re right, we should. Uh, I…  wait, I haven't even said congratulations yet, I feel like an idiot. I mean, that's _huge_ what you’re doing, I could never have done something like that.”

She lets a half smile slip, concealing it with a pout and a slight dip of the chin to the floor. He’s always noticed that about her; she can be arrogant and hold her triumphs up high, but she can also be modest and respectful, and come across as if she doesn't know how much she deserves all the triumphs she’s earned, which comes as too much of a reminder that actually, sometimes, she genuinely _doesn't_ know how much she’s worthy because just like him, somewhere along the line someone told her and made her feel like she was worthless.

“Could have? Did you not listen to me at all in there? You still can.”

He nods solemnly, trying to believe her.

“Yeah, I know, I did. Actually, I'm kind of hoping _you_ didn't listen to _me,_ not to everything I said.”

She stops walking on the spot then, because if there’s one thing she knows _is_ in Jeff’s wheelhouse, it's going back on things he’s said, especially when it comes to her. She parts her lips as if she’s preparing for the truth; he didn't mean it. He meant something else that’s too hard to explain or too complicated for him to ever understand.

“Not everything,” He repeats, “because I don't even know what I was saying, other than the fact it was all true.” He watches her shoulders drop and her breathing settle.

“I mean the whole penis thing? I don’t even know what that was, that was the least romantic thing I could have said.”

She opens her mouth again, not to talk or to brace herself, but to pull a face of surprise because she’d never expected that.

“Romantic?” She almost sounds amused. He shakes his head and ignores it.

“Romantic _thing;_ I’ve no idea what that _thing_ is because I don't know what I’m doing. I’ve literally never done this before.”

She takes a step forward instinctively because then it wouldn't take any effort to find his hand in the dull light flickering down from a street lamp above. She doesn't though; _yet._

“Can I ask you a question?” He mumbles a yes whilst scratching a finger under his nose.

“Did it really take me leaving? Because I’ve been away over summer before, so… it doesn't add up to me.”

He chews on his lip for a moment, watching their feet. She’s waiting for a simple answer, one with not a lot of meaning; yes or no.

“I…” He has to think back to stepping away from her when the group had joined them; how he’d turned so easily as if it was trained within him; how he could still feel the weight of her fingers in his hand as he stood back and made up a reason for them being there, and how he doesn't want to feel that anymore.

He doesn't know if he’ll have to, or if one day it will be worse and he’ll have to smile and hug her like he’s an old acquaintance who knows far less than whoever is standing by her side, but he knows, no matter what, he wants to avoid that happening. He doesn't want to have to step away anymore; he wants to stand and follow.

“I wouldn't have told you if you hadn't have found me. I would have let you go.”

“That easily?”

“No, not easily. It would have hurt like hell, and quite frankly, it still does, because you’re going away and you might not come back because nobody can plan these things. No matter what you do you’re going to end up doing it well, and I can't be a reason you don’t. I…”

He gulps and takes a shaky breath and thinks about the scotch he needs to down for all this truth telling.

“I’m not worth that; ever. And that's not me saying I think you believe I am because I don't. To be honest, I… I don’t want you to.”

She finds his hand.

“Jeff, you don’t get to decide that.”

He looks down at his left hand, limp and loose between her fingers. Even though he’s craved her touch in more ways than one for however long it’s been, and even though his senses are on fire, he can only feel how cold and cool she is against his skin. He looks up again, and she watches how he searches her eyes, trying to work out what to say.

“You don’t have to decide on anything, in fact. I don’t know what you were expecting or if you’re expecting _anything_ at all, but whatever this _thing_ is… you,” It’s her turn to look at their hands, “ _we,_ have the whole summer to figure it out. That’s ten weeks, and it’s not such a big deal, we have Skype and text and email and whatever else you want to use, and yes I know, _not_ Snapchat because you still don’t understand why things have to disappear after ten seconds.” She rolls her eyes and squeezes his hand a little to try and lighten the mood. He shrugs like it’s not much of a change in conversation, his voice still low and uncertain.

“I just don’t get why I would only want to look at a photo for a few seconds. What if I get distracted and then it’s gone? I can’t ask for you to send it again because you might not have saved it yourself.”

“I always save a copy but I get what you mean.”

They both pause and once again their eyes drift to their hands. Annie pulls away but her hand doesn’t reach its resting place because Jeff fumbles in the dark for it again, not wanting to let her go. Even though he still can’t feel much, the knowledge of her being there unmoving from where he’s stood is what calms him.

He looks up and around at the sky which he knows would be dotted with white blinking stars if they were nearer the mountains, where there would be no light to blur them out. It’s an attempt to distract himself from the heat spreading up the back of his neck, a feeling that he’s felt a lot over the past year; it’s the sensation that nudged him closer to saying something but never quite pushed him over the edge…

“If you leave next week then we can talk more before then, right?”

…until now.

Annie smiles up at him genuinely, the lights surrounding them reflecting in her eyes, drawing him in more than whatever he would find up in the sky.

“Yeah, we can, if you want to."

He nods and flicks his eyes across her face, his own brightening slightly as if he’s on the verge of everything finally breaking through.

“I do. I want to, and we should.” He looks down at their hands again, “It’s important. You are. And I’m sorry for making it feel like you’re not. You never deserved any of that, and I’m sorry.”

Annie’s cheeks feel warm and she wishes that he would pull her closer and press his lips against hers because then she could work out if he’s feeling the same way as she is, but she knows he wouldn’t do that now. The past hour has shown how much fear is within him. She’s seen how worried he is about making the wrong decisions or not making them at all, or making other people’s decisions change; so, she makes one for him.

She steps forward swiftly so he has no time to change her mind, cupping a hand to the back of his neck, moving it around to his jaw when she’s finally kissing him again. He’s motionless against her until she starts to set the pace. He pulls back so that their noses are pressed together. He can feel her hand move and he doesn’t reach out to hold it because he’s waiting for her to hold it up against his chest so that he can move back in.

Jeff’s not thinking about what to do when either one of them pulls away, he’s thinking about how he can finally _feel_ now. He can feel her up against him and he can feel her thumb against his beard which he should probably tame at some point, but maybe he should ask her first because she did once date someone with worse grooming habits than him so maybe she finds it attractive, but that’s a thought about the past and who she’s been with before, which isn’t what he should be focusing on. He should be thinking about how she’s with _him_ right now and how he’s allowed to accept this; he’s allowed to feel.

When she steps down, more for air than for anything else he presumes, her hair is sticking up a little and there’s a strand still clinging to his sweater which he shyly pulls away with a smile.

“So, we get to do that a lot during this week, right?” She laughs for the first time since she’d waltzed into Britta’s bar, and it makes him smile further. She matches his smile but looks away bashfully, failing an attempt to hide it.

“Only if we talk.”

He shakes and nods his head all at the same time whilst his eyes widen because he’ll talk all he has to if it means he can blur out the world with _Annie._

“Yeah, sure, all the talking. Lots of talking.”

She bites her lip and crosses an arm over her chest so she’s clasping her hand around the other. She crosses her legs too.

“And you’re saying I shouldn’t have listened to the…” She drops her voice to a whisper, “… _penis,_ thing?” His ears shoot back like a deer in the headlights and he suddenly fills with guilt, but she smiles again and he realises she was calling him out on purpose.

“I… oh, well, I… no you shouldn’t have. I mean, I wa… I want this.”

She lets out a sigh like she had when he’d told her; when he’d finally told her that whatever she’d been ‘imagining’ over the years hadn’t been all in her head. It had been in his too, and his heart, and his hands.

“Ten weeks. We can work it all out.”

“Yeah… I have a lot of stuff to work out.”

“Speaking of which, I need to get home and do just that… I need to confirm things and get travel arranged and flights booked. It’s going to be a busy week.”

“Yeah, jeez, what’s the time anyway?”

Annie pulls out her phone as he looks at his watch and they both smile when they go to say the same thing.

“Uh, do you need a lift? I can drive you home.” His mind seems clearer now, so he asks just in case.

“No, it’s okay, I should move my car anyway.” She watches him nod, “Thanks, though."

They walk side by side to their cars, neither of them brave enough to reach out for their hands again because there’s a difference between holding a hand supportively and holding one to walk, just like there’s a difference between kissing on campus and kissing in an apartment, or on a couch, or anywhere else which doesn’t lead to just talking.

“Are you going to be okay driving?” She asks as she pulls her car keys out of her blazer pocket.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m half way now anyway.” She nods, standing in between her driver’s side and his passenger door. He leans up against it before pushing away and looking down at her, his face softening but not all the way like he’s trying to hold himself together; holding himself back from breaking through completely because he knows what would happen if he did.

“Thank you.”

She twists her lips to one side, not having to say it out loud to ask why.

“For finding me. For making sure I didn’t let you go. I won’t. I won’t hold you back or let you go. I’ll do whatever you want.” She smiles up at him, placing her hands over his chest; one over his heart.

“I want you to call me… and help me pack… and _talk._ ”

“Yes to all of that. I’ll do it all.”

“And I want you to get home safely and text me.”

He nods and leans forward but instead of going in for a kiss, he just holds her close, tucking his chin over her shoulder.

He closes his eyes and breathes.

_He’s in Borchert’s lab, and he’s looking at her, and he feels it for the first time. He feels everything and nothing that he’s ever felt before, and it terrifies him. It terrifies him that it’s taken him this long to feel it, to know what it means, to have three words to finally think when he looks at her._

He opens his eyes and watches her climb into her car, closing the door for her, smiling through the window as she flicks on the engine and waits for it to stutter to a start. He stands and watches her drive away smoothly, her lights getting smaller as she drives further on.

_To finally have three words which she might say back._


End file.
